I had completed everything I wanted and/or needed to do, with the exception of calling my mother. I couldn't get a hold of her, so I sat down on crew's mess and started watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Not fifteen minutes into the movie, my portable DVD player went dark. Almost simultaneously, I heard a couple of loud "clunks." I was confused at first, but the duty cook knew immediately what had happened - loss of shore power, confirmed a minute later by a 1MC announcement. By the time I reached the engine room, the casualty response was rolling; it was kicked into another gear by the word "fire" over the loudspeaker, which is the one word that immediately grabs everyone's attention. A few seconds later, another announcement was passed - as a result of that, it was no longer our responsibility to fight the fire. We therefore turned back to the electrical situation. The ship and crew performed as expected and as trained, and we restored normal electrical capacity with no damage to equipment or injury to personnel.
Once we got everything settled down, I tried again to call Mom, but still to no avail. It was now approaching dinner, and Miguel was bringing me Applebee's at my request - a most gracious gesture on his part. It arrived at a quarter past four. I was smack dab in the middle of devouring this scrumtrulescence when the call came from the engine room - it was time to hang tags so the shipyard could fix their broken shit. So I had to get up from my chicken fingers and French fries, and go sit in "the box" for half an hour - the very same box where my entire division sang "Happy Birthday" to me in the morning. After that, I had to finish setting status for the work, and then I finally got through to Mom for some abbreviated birthday greetings. I then finished my dinner and went back into the box.
Unlike some instances in the past, I can't blame anybody on ship's force or the project team for what happened. Sometimes, stuff just fails, and it bites you in the ass and you have to take it. And of course, it's only fitting that it occurs on May 1.